Hello readers of my very wordy holiday journal, I went fishing with Ron Stewart today, phone +64-03-442-9966. I think he is a very good guide with a reasonable rate 650 per day… but that said, price isn’t everything… anyway, I think he is a patient guide, who produces many opportunities, a bit like bonefish on Christmas island, there are so many shots, if you stuff up the first few, its okay, there will be more coming. Whatever it is, we were fishing for brown trout… in the morning light, we sighted and cast to about 20 browns, ranging from 3-6lbs but had multiple refusals do the dry fly but the nymph had many lookers but no one seemed to commit as we worked our way along… maybe our nymphs were not juicy enough…

At around 12:15, Ron announced, “no fish, no lunch”. Shortly after Ron yelled SET!! And a fish was on! She had gently sipped the green beetle fly off the surface… she went 4lbs! I was over the moon to have landed my first kiwi trout, a brown, on a dry fly… these browns were not easy to see, and I found it difficult to get the fish to eat the fly too… to be brutally honest, my concentration wavered… anyway, I hooked my second brown trout a few casts later, again on the same beetle fly and a 3lbs tippet… this time, it was a much bigger fish of about 6lbs… it gave me various hair raising moments when it made a run with the current flow and took me down till I had a few wraps of olive green airflow chalkstream platinum fly line left on my reel… well at this point I managed to stop the fish’s run. Ron grabbed the back of my vest and walked me backwards to another area to play the fish in lesser current having hooked the fish right in the middle of the river. The hair-raising moments, walking backwards and the bent rod were far from over, as I pulled the fish towards me via the reel he tried a dive. Immediately I tip toed and stretched out pushing the rod as high as I possibly could to try and coax the fish out of the sanctuary, which it was heading towards, after all he had the advantage of being in his own domain. Well, 40 feet of line taken in, and two attempted dives into the weeds and I had this big trout circling the edges of the weeds, thrashing around and avoiding Ron’s net… eventually he was tired and slid into the net. It was huge!!! I thought this long skinny brown trout wouldn’t fit into Ron’s net, but it did… we estimated it would weigh about 6-7 pounds and was labeled an “average sized fish”… this statement made me wonder how big would a big fish be, which apparently is somewhere between 8-12lbs. Minutes later, I stupidly missed yet another “normal” brownie when I set the hook too slowly, giving the fish time to spit the fly out and when I did set, the beetle was ripped up from mid-water (having just been spat out by the trout) and flew right at me like a missile… not the nicest experience while trout fishing. I yet missed another consecutively when I set too fast, whipping the fly out of his/her mouth. We saw many other trout in the backcountry, we… actually Ron spotted and I tried tempting a big [10-12lbs brown] for over 45 minutes with various flies, hoppers, beetles, green humpy, yellow humpy, caddis, Royal Wulff, PTN, PTN variant, had a look at the PTN and PTN variant, finally spooked when nymph drifted down with weed caught on hook point. Well, it was not to be, I had no other luck with various other smaller trout around 5lbs although I had some follows but no other solid takes.
Weather was cool in the morning with southerly wind until 3pm then a stiff breeze started whipping over us while tempting the big browns… so we had to give up fishing and start heading back. While wading back and fishing, I had a nice light coloured brown trout that trundled along, saw the nymph, and followed it all the way to my rod tip but didn’t’ commit by trundling a little faster and eating the fly. I estimate it to be about 5lbs. Ron is an exceptional guide who carries many flies and has a plan B in case all goes wrong. Well I’ll say it again for impact in case I haven’t said it before. I fished a light, light leader of 3.5lbs throughout the day…

I’ve decided and conclude that wild trout live in some of the most beautiful places on earth
Its great fishing in NZ, no bears to worry about… however, a "short " 12 feet+ of leader with a pair of nymphs isn’t the combination easiest to cast, especially into a stiff breeze- which gets real strong… i think i will need to re learn how to cast in order to become a better and more consistent caster… sadly, I wasn’t casting in top form all throughout the trip, and need to be able to place the fly faster and more accurately. We had dinner at Solera [hope I spelt that right] which was real nice, but I preferred the hotel food… solera was nicely cooked and flavoursome but the hotel food was better!
Mum & dad went to Paradise and came back… not sure where else they went while I was fishing but when I came back, they had been slacking at the hotel for a bit…

Today Dad, Mum and I flew from Auckland to Queenstown… the flight was epic! The scenery flying between the mountains and descending to Queenstown airport was phenomenal! I saw many glacial rivers and a lake or two… it was exciting! I wish I had my camera out! My only complaint was that the flight was totally packed out and I was sitting with 2 rather large people and that left me little breathing space… well it was a domestic flight so it wasn’t that bad! Happy birthday Jasmine Yap!! Hope you’ve had a good one!

Queenstown is a very scenic town, its set on the banks of this beautiful lake with clear blue water, guarded by mountains all round. The sky was blue when we landed, and the wind was strong and cold, I later learned that it blows up from Antartica, which explains the coldness. The scenery was lovely at the airport but it got even better as we arrived in central Queenstown and drove up to the heritage, where we were going to stay. The wind was extremely strong wind, which formed some big waves and huge whitecaps. The mountains were forcing the moving air through a channel, which I guess caused the strong wind.

Shopped today at Cream, which sells little funky items to put around home. Mum and dad bought various items for the kitchen and a mobile, I bought some monkey hangers so I can hang my clothes on my door in case I’m picking out clothes or something. I think I’ve got a thing for monkeys, about a year ago I bought grandpa a tie with monkeys on it, from tie rack in the UK.

Apparently it rained this morning and we’re real lucky that the weather’s cleared up. I would imagine Queenstown to be a rather miserable place when it’s raining! The sailing scene in Queenstown seems to be small keelboats and larger, no dinghies. Some locals had a little mini sailing race on the lake. One team even picked up their third crew member off the dock an hour before the race… I cringed at some of the mistakes that were being made but it was all in good fun and interesting to watch as I’ve only once watched a race live and was quite new to racing then. It was an enriching experience to watch the race and not be racing in it… However, I wish I was sailing my laser radial then… could be blasting off-wind real quick, which is probably one of my favourite things to do.

We may even stay an extra night at heritage Queenstown- highly recommend it to anyone, the view from the lake wing is fantastic, but it’s a bit cold now even in early summer, there’s skiing during winter! Dinner at the hotel was lovely, I had salmon, and I can’t remember what mum and dad had.


Going fishing tomorrow again, with John’s friend, Ron Stewart… I can’t wait!!

NZ trout fishing frustrations!

Well, well, today I went trout fishing with John Hamill. Which, was totally coincidental, Kelly as i didn't contact you're dad, and Uncle Mike did... completely by coincidence! I had loads of fun even though I was unable to bring trout to hand due to bad casting and lousy hook sets, I did however get some very subtle takes… they were so subtle that the indicator didn’t even twitch! Today was one of the days that I wish I was taller, we had to climb around a whole lot, up the banks and all that kind of stuff. It is good to be small (which I am) but it’s possibly better to be tall and lanky so that its much easier to climb up the banks!! Trout fishing is challenging! The fish were so so picky about flies and taking them, it seemed to me to be that they wanted. For the record of my poor trout fishing skills when sight casting, I messed up 8 shots. Sight casting seems to me to be very challenging but extremely fun and requires great perseverance, as well as super quick, quiet and accurate presentation skills. Apparently this afternoon, water was slightly discoloured, due to recent rains! I thought it was really, really clear, especially when compared to the murky Singapore water. Apparently the rain had flushed many large fish back into the lake which accounted for the low number fish per unit area and unwillingness to feed... well, i'll keep trying to catch a trout... i think i'll have to do it in the south island though...

Having had a long and hot afternoon challenging fishing, we drove back to Uncle Mike’s house and detoured at his neighbour’s place to have a look at his and his daughter’s house. It was beautiful, set on the high banks of the Waikato river, it had many recycled materials in it such as recycled wood to make the fireplace, a butcher’s table in the middle, and such like. It was a wonderful house! There were many trees behind the house and they were building a Bed and breakfast! The cabin was a very nicely built and since it was surrounded by trees, it had a quiet, peaceful and serene feel. Having spent about 2 hours looking around the house, we left for home! Dinner at uncle Mike’s was wonderful- home grown lamb and beef, pasta, and local salmon! I’m a little sad that we’re leaving tomorrow… but one has to move on to see more of New Zealand. Life would be much easier if we had 3 weeks instead!

I had a genius idea yesterday evening before I fell asleep so I told it to dad and he agreed. So now, we’ve got a rental SUV instead of the little Toyota corolla and I’d say it’s a lot easier to fit all the bags into the back and its got a smoother ride, but sadly more roll. Dad and I met mum at the airport, she got upgraded to business class… lucky!! I told her all about the going-on’s the past few days… and she laughed!! We then drove to Hamilton, where we’re staying the night at uncle mike’s home, which is like a farm, with a beautiful house on it. Upon arrival Dad and Uncle Mike went off to the sawmill while Auntie Sally, mum and I went to Hamilton gardens. I took lots of photos… about a hundred or so i think… thank goodness it’s stopped raining and the weather is warming up and getting really very plesant! Auntie sally cooked dinner and it was real nice!! Tomorrow I’m going trout fishing and to say the least, I’m real excited! Going to pack soon… at least the 2 trout boxes are fully packed and ready to go! I’m also bring my flats fly box because Jimmy Wong was after all catching fish on Charlies which are usually used on bonefish in the Bahamas!

This morning was quite nice even though dad woke me up at 845am,which was way early… considering that I went to bed past midnight… Margret cooked breakfast this morning and it was absolutely wonderful! We had cereal, fruits, bacon, poached eggs and toast. It was the tastiest and hearty breakfast I’d had in a long time. Margret also gave me some recipes for shortbread and a particular orange sauce that goes with chicken, duck and I’d suppose fish.

It was another gloomy, rainy and misty day today, but I took some shots of the view from the house. After which, Dad and I waved goodbye, set off for lifeway collage in Snell’s beach. We had lunch with uncle Mike on campus, and it was very nice. I enjoyed lunch. The food was good, the atmosphere was nice, and the company rocked!! Having filled the stomachs, we adjourned to Huhu studios to take a look around, which was very interesting… we met some of the artists who are very interesting people! After the visit, Dad, Uncle Mike and I drove back to Auckland and encountered a bit of heavy traffic. We ate dinner at a Cantonese restaurant across the road from Citylife Auckland, which was quite nice and really convenient!
I’m now back at Citylife Auckland… Mum arrives tomorrow at 1155am, hope she’s early then we will zoom down to Hamilton to stay with uncle Mike and auntie Sally for 2 nights Wednesday n Thursday, day trip to Rotorua for trout fishing on Thursday, fly to Queenstown on friday

This is going to be a really short entry… because I’m tired, its 1140 at night and i’d like to get some rest. I’ve had long and tiring day, without any fishing… I’m still highly relieved to have found my point and shoot camera…anyway, today Dad and I drove from Motel Russell to Kerikeri airport which is really small, when we got to Kerikeri airport, I was stunned at the size of the airport as it was tiny!!! I think it just services domestic flights in small planes as well as the local flying club. Even the people there who work for budget knew nothing about the GPS but at least the new one that they gave us to use seems to work fine which was a great relief. We were able to find our way to belvedere home stay, which is run by Ron and Margret who are an older, but seem to be extremely happy couple. Margret cooked dinner for all of us and it was lamb, which I am not very fond of, but surprisingly, it was really very good. Margret is a phenomenal chef! Thank Goodness for the I-site at Wharengi, as Michelle who was the girl at the counter found us this homestay.
Anyway, the weather today was really quite miserable, drizzling and cloudy with no sign of the sun, however, I still needed to have my ray-bans on my nose as it was by no means easy to look at the clouds reflecting sunlight into one’s eyes. According to the weather forecast, it’s going to be miserable tomorrow. I sure hope it does not stay like this! Where is the fine weather that New Zealand is famous for??

Today was a great day! The weather was excellent with calm waters, clouds thin and high in the sky, a steady current flow, breeze a good boat and captain and the snapper were biting but sadly, not very aggressively.

Anyway, here’s the scoop… this morning, Dad and I woke up at about 710am to get ready to go fishing… I still couldn’t find my point and shoot camera and just grabbed my big camera bag with the SLR in it and off we went. We got to the Russell wharf at 8am and there was Carl standing there outside the information counter which was just opening wearing a jet black shirt that had the lettering “4 reel” charters, Carl.

It must’ve taken about 15-20 minutes to get out from the wharf to the first fishing spot where the lines went down with halves of “salty dog” brand salted pilchards as bait, on what were probably 5/0 circle hooks. I would guess they were about 4x strong… this meant we would be into some serious fish… He passed Dad a pretty big rod and the shimano reel was loaded up with 20kg mono while the set he passed to me had 10kg mono on it. I guess he figured it would suit me better… Which it did, I can’t exactly hold onto a huge rod and reel set up for a really long time, especially if its heavy (which this was).

Carl warmed us up on some smaller snapper in the 30-40cm range, which provided a little bit of fun as the takes were very enthusiastic and they would hook virtually themselves. Sadly, instead of taking up the slack when the fish grabbed the bait, Dad kept jerking the rod so the hook would just pop out of the fish’s mouth instead of smoothly into the fish’s lip. As a result, at the first spot, Dad and I caught 4 fish between the 2 of us.

We soon drifted past the snapper school, or it moved off, and we changed spot and began to search for bigger fish. We came across a huge bait school and there were many other boats around it, all with their lines down, but there was no action. There was the odd 45cm fish being picked up but nothing huge… we motored further up current and set up a drift… while Dad, Gary and I set halves of pilchards and dragged them along just above the bottom, Carl jigged for baitfish and he is good at it… before we knew it, the tank at the back of the boat was full of scad. At this spot, dad caught a sweep, which is a trash fish and I managed a snapper or 2, which we released. Since the live-well was full, it was time to move on. I think I can attribute the rapid catch rate of bait to Carl’s jigging skills and the speed at which he unhooks the bait, with a spoon!

Spot 3… we had some big hits and made good on one of them… landing a good sized snapper that went probably 8 lbs and it was bright reddish brown in colour. Such a beautiful fish…it was destined for the dinner table- for sure! We had the usual baby snappers around 35cm… On Carl’s boat, legal sized snapper are 32cm even though the national minimum size is 27cm, simply because a 27cm snapper doesn’t give you very much of a feed while a 32cm fish does.

The current began to pick up at around 1130 so we moved over to yet another spot. From here, I could see kingfish smashing baitschools, leaping out of the water and chasing bait as it tried so desperately to escape the huge mouth and empty stomach, but it was not to be, the frenzy continued on and on. Down went the anchor, and the sinkers, circle hooks and cut pilchard or scad, which had not survived in the live-well. They were chopped in half or rigged whole and lowered to the bottom. Here is where we had more big hits and as noon approached, the live bait came out and I’m not very good at live bait but we managed our second big snapper of the day, which weighed in at about 9-10lbs which took a live scad. Before I knew it we had to head back to the dock… at least we had all caught lots of fish… on this bottom where it had few corals and practically nothing that could cut your line, I was kicking myself because I would have liked to have one of my own light tackle sets in my hands which would have enabled me to extract more fun out of each fish, and I wouldn’t have missed so many bites since I’m used to fishing with light instead of heavy tackle.

I’m still stoked about this afternoon’s fishing… all the fish were legal sized, with a 2 biggies and other lost big fish… it was really fun! Even Dad who doesn’t fish talked and talked and talked about it. We kept one fairly small snapper that went 37cm because we were fishing over about 40 meters of water and dad wound him up in a hurry so his swim bladder was bloated… into the box he went, along with the 2 biggies… Fishing today was a good reminder that there are many interesting fish in the sea worth preserving. I’ve never caught a snapper that had blue green spots on its body, and these ones did, well maybe not the big ones but the small ones did… and they are extremely pretty fish! We even saw various pods of dolphins on the way out to fishing [took lots of pictures] and on the way back without even trying, we even saw sea birds like gulls and gannets, the dive bombing was super cool! The bird just tucks its wings in and falls out of the sky, going straight into the water after baitfish. Wonder if them birds ever get chomped by a shark or something. We also saw one lonely penguin paddling around the deep blue sea… landscape I notice is really quite rugged… {RACHEL ONG! THOUGHT OF YOU HERE after all, you’re miss ODAC =P}

Something that Singapore doesn’t have is clear and clean water… we could see the colour of the fish when it was still beating its tail and doing circles under the boat about 5-10 meters below the surface! Actually, in my opinion for the half day’s fishing, $100 was well worth it. I may one day forget how much I paid, but I wont forget how much fun I had, quality remains when the price is long forgotten…anyway Carl’s rates go something like this $100 PP/4 hours snapper fishing, $210 PP/5-6 hours kingie fishing, Carl does marlin too… didn’t ask about that… but I expect it to be expensive.

I tried for Kingfish off the rocks… I did hookup… I sure did… and well, lets just say, I need a new fly line since one of them cut me off real bad… if I ever make this trip again, I’d bring some of my own tackle… like my pro gear 450 reel and a jigging rod and my 8-17 spinning set… they would have worked like a real charm!

We ate fillets from the 10lbs fish for lunch at Sally’s- it was very good but very filling… The pretty waitress gave us many types of sauces, Thai chili, tomato, cold slaw flavour, light mustard, white wine and 2 other unknowns… For first time, I drank a beer at lunchtime [Stella- memories of the Rev & Cambridge]! Sally’s, which is a restaurant has very nice food, nicely cooked, tasty but not your big plate small food thing… we actually went there for 2 meals and would have gone for a third one but it was closed.

Anyway, we walked around Russell after lunch and i got rather tired, so I walked back to motel early. While picking up my fishing vest and turning it upside down, my point and shoot camera fell out of the biggest pocket at the back! I’m so relieved!!!! I celebrated by going down to the beach and the wharf and Swoff-ed off there, which is why I need a new bonefish taper for my 9wt rod… anyway, at the wharf, I had a short fish with my Winston BII-Mx 6wt, caught some livies, spooked some mullet and chatted with some locals, one from Alaska, sailed to NZ [a guy]… and Kelly, and her husband Travis. Kelly and Travis live up in Russell… one meets all sorts of people on holiday… Kelly’s dad is a fishing guide in Rotorua, and I might call him if I need a guide in Rotorua or on my next trip here. I also saw 2 very pretty girls who were diving/jumping off the wharf and swimming around… not the safest place but all in good fun I suppose. Russell is such a friendly and relaxed place! haha… Bing Xi- if u were still head prefect, and we were here, I think Ivan, Thanapon, Joel & I would’ve thrown you in all in good fun especially because there were some jelly fish swimming around!

The weather here is crazy… when you pull out the 9weight, the wind dies and u think, its 6weight time… if you’ve got the 6weight, the wind flexes its muscles and shows you who’s boss…

We’ll be Driving to Kawakawa airport tomorrow to get the new GPS… shouldn’t take more than 1.5 hours… don’t have to worry a thing about putting more mileage on the Toyota corolla hatchback since its rented… what a good feeling Damn!!!!! I’m fried like a lobster!!! Forgot the white war paint [sunblock]… gotta do damage control with lotion… Petrol is expensive in this quiet little town… ½ tank was $40! Shit… this is almost Singapore pricing… I better stop complaining =P Can’t wait for mum to get here on Wednesday and to meet up with Uncle Mike on tuesday and get myself trout fishing on thursday…I think its just going to be 1/2 day or maybe 1 in north Island of trout-ing… there are 2 reservoirs up here in the north, doubt its great… weather here’s quite hot and trout don’t exactly love heat! Well Mum’s promised lots of trout fishing in the south island so we’ll see how we get on. Man I did a lot today and this is a super long entry… photos to follow!


Readers: send me your address and postal code so I may send you a Christmas card!

6/12/08
hello hello! Its day 2 (:
well… this morning I got up bright and early, actually not very early but very bright (8:40am), packed up my bags a little and headed back down to Zest for breakfast, which was really pretty good! I enjoyed the mushrooms a lot… they were done in a sauce… to cut a long story short, after much pain of packing up, checking out and sorting out accommodation at Russell, which is in the northern part of the north island, which Sana [Finnish girl at the reception] organized for us, Dad and I left Citylife Auckland for Rod and Reel, which is a fly shop in Newmarket [22 Melrose street]. We were welcomed into the shop by Yoshi, who is a very helpful and extremely friendly person. I bought 6x hare and copper, 6x Phesant tail nymph, 1 Olive Airflo Platinum fly line WF-6F, 1x 12lbs 50yard Maxima Chameleon tippet. His assistant (very helpful olderman) pointed me to Tapeka point to try some fishing.

We “finally” got on the road to Russell at about 11:15-11:30am and it was a fairly uneventful trip until Dad scared me out of my nap at about 2 hours out of Russell as the GPS had told him to do something and he assumed we had reached Russell… not fun! According to him, it had also gone blank! GRRR!!! We had lunch at a roadside parade with tourist information and 4 restaurants & art gallery- I had 1/2sandwich and hot choc. I really was not feeling hungry.

The journey to Russell is shortened by the car ferry, which newer GPS- units have. So, my dear Dad and I took car ferry across the Harbour (I cant for the life of me remember from where to where) but It was the princely sum of $10 per car, $1 per passenger. While on the ferry, we have to Detour to Kawakawa airport to get a new GPS unit on probably Monday. Trip there takes about 1h30min from Russell according to our failing GPS unit. Kawakawa has some trout fishing (Lake Opura I think-brochure in car... picked up at lunch spot) no idea if I’ll get to chuck a nymph or dry fly at some of them. Road trip now is probably going to become Auckland-Russell (2 nights)- Kawakawa (1night) - Snell’s Beach/point (1 night)- Auckland (pass through to get mum on wed)-Hamilton (2 nights)- Auckland (fly to Queenstown)

Eventually we arrived at Motel Russell at about 340pm and got settled in, room 14.The room is by the road but very quiet. Its not got any air conditioning but that’s alright with me. To indicate how cold it gets in the winter, the beds are heated and there is a heating unit located right by the door.

Having settled in, I went fishing at Tapeka Point at about 530-645. The conditions were like this, it was rather rocky, apparently low tide, visible rocks above and sub-surface, light wind, small waves and seriously clear saltwater… lost 2 white flies (Charlie and clouser) had a hit on orange thing and got snagged, Coho WF6F scuffed. Finally used new Winston rod!!! 8lbs tippet quite easy to snap in SW!!! 12lbs gives more chance… and even then I still got busted off by I think it was a snapper. Tomorrow, I’m going to go fishing! Well actually I’m going to do some more fishing tomorrow morning. And we’re going after snapper with “4 real charters” at 8am, which is run by a person named Carl who is [according to Jo, the girl who runs the motel with her hubby] a very nice person! Well in my opinion, most of these charter boat people who have a good reputation are nice and dependable people who produce results.
I have just this minute realized that… Today is the first day I actually whipped out my camera and took some photos… hardly took any. I thought the scenery was really plesant, with some breathtaking moments which I missed as its not easy to snap a picture going at 100km/h on the highway, we’ll have to see how on the next few long drives… whatever it is, I snapped about 5-8 scenery ones today. Sunset in Russell today was beautiful and knowing me I photographed some of it!!

Just a bit about Russell, very small town with 2 main streets, with a huge hill on the way to Tapeka Point. Being Foodies, we got some dinner recommendations and they were Bounty Bistro and Sally’s. I’d personally recommend Sally’s. in Russell, there are Many interesting shops, which mainly sell art and craft, in addition there is 1 small fishing shop without fly gear. But the shopkeeper was very happy to tell me where to go, and warned me about the fish sizes and stuff like that, and actually if you’ve got to measure it, its undersized! That said, this is day 2 without surfing the Internet and listening to Music!
Places to try: the wharf, rocks on either side, Tapeka point, oh yeah, and if any kiasu person decides to be smart and take undersized fish, the locals are excellent at whipping out a phone and calling their local fish and game office to hunt you down… so don’t even think about it. Taking undersized fish is just disgusting…
On a supremely happy note, I sure am enjoying myself a lot!!!! (Yes Rachel Ng, I’m having more than my fair share of fun =P). I can’t wait… going fishing tomorrow
Shit... I think I lost my PnS camera… I cant seem to find it this morning… drat!! Will have to take the SLR out on the boat I guess…

Well, dear readers, I arrived in Auckland today at about 1130am… Yes I’m alive and in one-piece… haha! I hardly slept [grand total of 5 hours and getting woken up about 3-4 times… couldn’t be bothered to count] at all last night for various reasons such as a warm plane, wailing children and rather turbulent weather… on the good side, Dad and I managed to secure 3 seats between the 2 of us so I could half lie down and get as much rest as I could… lucky Wen and Mum managed to get an upgrade to business when they went… well, Mum did have a sprained ankle.

The airport in Auckland is quite nice really, large DFS, efficient customs, and actually, what matters is that it is quite a nice and slow paced place as after I went through customs, my heart rate seemed to slow down and relax after stepping out into the arrival hall. Dad and I then headed over to the Budget car rental counter to collect a car, the receptionist who was at the counter, was really humourous. I guess she has the typical kiwi humour and cracked plenty of jokes. Knowing dad, he could not make a decision swiftly and was tossing up between the Ford Territory and the Corolla, we stuck with the latter in the end… we have a GPS too!! That’s a lot of fun to use and it helped us to navigate to Citylife Auckland [hotel] quite painlessly… it tells you where to turn and how far away you are, however it is about 30-50 meters off…

Having been checked into the hotel [The bed here is super comfortable! It’s actually really soft and bouncy while mine at home is hardly like a rock], we dropped our bags down in our large and comfortable room, we went to explore Auckland and walk around. It seems to me to be that all the surf shops in New Zealand or more specifically Auckland on Queen’s street are in intense competition with each other! Quiksilver, Billabong, Oakley and Rip Curl are all within 3 blocks of each other. Sadly, nothing really interested me. There were 1-2 pairs of board shorts look ok, but nothing that grabbed me round that throat and screamed BUY ME, BUY ME!!!… However, there were some interesting and nice girly tees and bikinis that Jie would wear on her days off in Quiksilver and Rip Curl [as usual]. I also saw various cool bags in Rip Curl (incuding Jenevieve’s boyfriend’s bag) I wonder where was O’Neil and Reef, they’re the other 2 brands that I can think of at the moment that were invisible… perhaps they were hiding as they were afraid I’d clean out their inventory… yeah right, like I’ve got that much cash =P… I was right or rather, mum was right, Auckland is a rather relaxed and slightly sleepy city with most shops closing between 5 and 6 o’clock but there are some interesting shops including one that made jewelry and made some of their products on site. There was also a kiwi bookstore, which was really rather interesting as it had a feel like select books but more homey and welcoming.

I visited the university of Auckland, which was quite a lot of fun. The university campus is gigantic, with a variety of both old and new buildings. Being a kiwi? University, the school has a relaxed feel about the place and does not feel like a factory like some schools in Singapore. The students’ faces also told happy stories as opposed to sad ones which one sometimes encounters. We left at about 6:15 and on the way back we visited a craft shop, which was run by some very friendly and interesting people (hubby & wife) and, we bought a Jade pendant.

Having walked so much, we were feeling slightly hungry, Dad and I decided on dinner and we went to Zest, which is the hotel restaurant and it served some nicely cooked and flavour-some food! I had pork belly and dad had Lamb… Which isn’t high on my preference list… This restaurant was nice, spacious, had some large English windows, and subtle well-placed lighting so that one could read the menu easily and without the light being too bright as it reflects off the white paper. Deanna who was the waitress was really sweet and her collegue (who was a guy btw) was also good and efficient, and made some very good suggestions!

Dad and I will drive to Russell tomorrow which should take about 3-4 hours by looking at the map and estimating. We’ve actually planned out our driving/road tripping around the North Island of New Zealand, we’re going to do a big loop if possible, and do a north loop and a south loop or do a huge circle- ah whatever!!!! Tomorrow we are going to go from Auckland to Russell and spend 1 to 2 nights there. The rest from Russell is going to go something like this Snell’s Beach/point (1-2 night)- Auckland (pass through to get mum)-Hamilton (2 nights)- Auckland on Air New Zealand (fly to Queenstown)

Having been in England for about 5 weeks, this time last year, I’ve got to talk about the weather! The weather here is really very pleasant. I’ve been walking around in Jeans and a shirt, but would be quite happy in a pair of boardshorts and a comfy tee. The temperature seems to plunge at night and it gets quite chilly at night and in the early morning I would imagine… I have absolutely no idea what the temperatures are but I do know that the forecast said that the high is 26deg, low is 10.

For various people!!
Ms Lim: Sorry, I’ve yet to do more editing of your wedding photos [embarrassment]… I hope you’re enjoying your honeymoon!!! I’m sure enjoying my holiday even though I’m falling asleep in front of my computer!

Fishers: walked past the water near the hotel- TOTALLY UNFISHABLE!!!!!
Tien: I’m not freezing yet =P

Other friends: Missing you guys!!! Message me or email me if you need anything! But DON’T ASK FOR A LIVE SHEEP, that’s not possible as it won’t fit into my Samsonite or my Lowepro.
Photos to follow with commentary!!

you've hurt me... but somehow i wish u had cut me deeper so i would bleed till all the life flowed out of my veins

I haven't put anything on this year so to my few readers who actually visit... i'm still alive although i'm having exams and have had some computer problems, hence no entries... anyway, i'll be done by thursday and after that i'm going out for lunch with Dad and possibly Mum, then i need to go to the bank to make a fix deposit. well, expect more photos and blog entries soon.. (: